I'd like to juxtapose the above document with an excerpt from Peter F. Drucker?s book from 1999 [ref 1]. Peter Drucker is the most eminent management thinker, and here he writes about the management of the individual, for general public, of course, primarily for neurotypical people.
�The answer to the three questions, What are my strengths, How do I perform? and What are my values? should enable the individual, and especially the individual knowledge worker, to decide where he or she belongs.
This is not a decision that most people can or should make at the beginning of their careers. But most people, and especially highly gifted people, do not really know where they belong till they are well past their mid-twenties?
Knowing the answer to these three questions enables people to say to an opportunity, to an offer, to an assignment, �Yes, I?ll do that. But this is the way I should be doing it. This is the way it should be structured. This is the way my relationships should be. These are the kinds of results you should expect from me, and in this time frame, because this is who I am.�
Successful careers are not �planned.� They are the careers of people who are prepared for the opportunity because they know their strengths, the way they work, and their values.�
Hmm. If the above is true, if planning is an inadequate concept to find a Place in Society for non-handicapped, it is even more likely to be for the ASD affected. In few instances, the specifics of the ASD condition would make the above suggestion inadequate. In far more cases, ASD makes them more important.
l'd suggest that, beside demanding special considerations for the ASD affected (which is about state intervention), people should start seeking ways to promote the notions outlined in the quote, that are serving the higher functioning among the ASD affected, as well as any NT individual(which isn't(?) damaging). If statutory framework exists in all the UK nations for transition planning after compulsory education, and its implementation is at best patchy, it should largely be from cultural reasons. So we should seek - a new culture.
Another reason: the highly inpredictable economic and social environment we find today may make many initiatives for governmental help futile in near future. (E.g, even if NLabour wins on the next elections, maybe the minister responsible will have some wacky views, as Clare Short had on the environmentalists.)
Superficially, the idea of supporting cultural transformation (a slow process) looks extravagant, idealistic, and thus unlikely to succeed. But, if Drucker is anything to go by, the economic trends are going to be in support of it:
�Organizations that [?] strip away everything that gets in their... workers' way [to perform] -- will be able to attract, hold, and motivate the best performers. That will be the single biggest factor for competitive advantage in the next 25 years.� [2]
This could be a vehicle... ?
[1] �Management Challenges for the 21st Century� Peter F. Drucker 1999
[2] http://www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/l2l/spring2000/drucker.html
